In many cases, concurrent injections are given to patients by a clinician in a single sitting. An example is childhood vaccination. At certain predictable monthly intervals, children and adolescents are given immunizations against various diseases. Especially in the case of infants, multiple concurrent injections may be given in a single physician or clinic visit. In this case, each injection would be given at a different injection site (e.g., left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg).
Filled vaccination medication reservoirs are frequently prepared ahead of patient visits to facilitate safe and expeditious delivery to the patient, who is often apprehensive. In addition, there are medical reporting (charting) requirements with which physicians must comply. These charting requirements address lot traceability (which patients got which vaccine lots, which is important in the case of a recall), administration information (which is important in the case of an allergic reaction to the vaccine), as well as administration verification and parental consent if the patient is a minor.
In the case of childhood or adolescent vaccination, for instance, requirements could include: keeping track of vaccine lot information; injection sites, and the like; recording signature or initials of the administering clinician; and parental consent to each injection. This process is time consuming, and is a diversion from time spent on true clinical practice of medicine. Obviously, the busier a given physician practice is, the more time-consuming, tedious, and error-prone this exercise becomes. It would be desirable to provide a way to link important relevant information on the patient record to the actual medication reservoir in a way that eliminates transcription errors.
In some cases, medication reservoirs pre-filled with vaccine (such as those provided by BD Pharmaceutical Systems Division) have an “extra” preprinted label designed for application to a patient record upon administration. An example of this is Prevnar™ pneumoccal vaccine. However, the accompanying label only includes lot information and does not include administration information such as body side or injection site.
For medication reservoirs filled at point of care, a number of “home grown” solutions to this problem have been developed to address recordkeeping efficiency and consolidation. For instance, forms have been developed that aid recordkeeping. However, these forms do not link the actual vaccine in the medication reservoir to the actual patient record.
Similarly, from a medication reservoir perspective, customers have developed techniques informally to address this. However, they lack the error-proofing and simplicity of the present disclosure.
One solution to this problem employs a colored circular dot to indicate the vaccine (e.g., Measles, mumps, rubella or “MMR” vaccine is green dot; Varicella vaccine is red dot, etc.). This has the disadvantages of not including either administration site or side, and sometimes, the vaccine name. For this information, clinician custom or memory is relied upon.
Another solution uses a “Sharpie™” or other permanent marking pen to put initials for vaccine, site, or side onto the medication reservoir barrel. This has the disadvantage of being easily smudged, being illegible, or having incomplete or conflicting information.
Commonly, filled medication reservoirs are arranged on a tray in specific, repeated order left-to-right, with each medication reservoir being unlabeled. For instance, in the case of vaccines, a particular physician office could arrange MMR, Diptheria or “DPT,” and Hepatitis B always in that order. This has the disadvantage of being easily confused if a tray is shaken or dropped, or being confused if a clinician unfamiliar with the ordering system performs the vaccine administration.
Another solution is to print small laser-printed labels with vaccine names (MMR, DPT, etc.). These labels are then removed from the sheet and affixed to the medication reservoir prior to administration.
In each case, existing methods fail to facilitate a key efficiency, which is to link all important relevant information on the patient record to the actual medication reservoir in a way that eliminates transcription errors. In addition, these systems are not standardized and do not “force” a clinician-user to adopt a systematic approach to medication administration and recordkeeping. The present disclosure avoids home-grown solutions that address only half the problem (either medication reservoir labeling or patient charting) and integrates both aspects into a single solution.
One or more embodiments of the present invention address one or more of these needs. In a single operation, with no opportunity for transcription error, embodiments of the invention allow for recording of the actual medicine given during a particular session, as well as providing a mechanism for the labeling of medication reservoirs so doses are not misadministered, forgotten, or double-administered during a physician visit.